Woodland Plants

There was a time when I was trying to figure out how to make oil paintings of woodland plants. I dreamed that there were trilliums growing outside my home, and that dream inspired me to search for trilliums on the rural island where I was living. When I asked around to find out who might be growing them, I was led to a woman who was growing trilliums in her woodland garden. The plants in her garden are the models for this series of paintings.

I began by making black and white paintings because I needed to concentrate my efforts on painting light and dark values without the added complexity of color. 

I focused on how the leaves seemed to be undulating and emerging from the shadows of the forest floor. I started by painting back to front so that the foreground leaves would overlap the leaves in the background. To reinforce the lightest lights, I then moved my brush from the outer tips of leaves and petals inward towards the stems, allowing some leaves to disappear into the shadows. 

I went on to paint a series of woodland plants in color.